When Trudi was almost 18, she told Daniel that she was due to meet her fast fiance for the first time, at a point in time about four weeks further on. The announced that she would eat Daniel for the final time the next day, and let him snuggle against her cheek in her bed once more. The next morning, when her mother had gone to work, she talked with him until soon after midday and then turned him loose in the garden.

“Take half an hour to hide, and then I’ll come and find you and catch you,” she said.

He ran off, thinking that she was at least giving him a chance to avoid becoming her lunch for the last time. It hadn’t occurred to him that she just wanted to enjoy hunting for him and chasing him, that if he did by any chance elude capture altogether, she could just time travel back an hour or two and leave the game of hide and seek out of her itinerary.

It took her forty minutes to find him, and about forty seconds to catch him.

Then she prepared him, took him to the dinner table, and sat towering in front of him.

“If it’s any consolation, I’m going to give you a lot more licks, and a lot more time lying in my mouth today. I hope my tongue is as much of a treat for you as you’ve always been for my tongue,” said Trudi, “I can’t really think of anything else we need to say to eachother, except to compliment you on your good behaviour this time. For a man so gifted with words, you’ve managed not to make all the fuss and protests and arguments that Murray went on with every time we talked about my eating him permanently. I’ve got 24 years to relive, and you’ll be part of my tummy the whole time, even though you soon won’t have any awareness of that fact. Thank you for all your time as my poetic partner. Be as brave as you can, and have a good ride.”

True to her word, she licked him so many times that he lost count, and then left him lying on her tongue for two hours, while she cleaned up in the kitchen, went up to her bedroom to read a book, and then finally looked out the window as the sun set on her mother’s garden. She would be home from work soon, Trudi considered, and it wouldn’t do to talk to one’s mother with one’s mother full.

She thought back the final gulps that had once despatched the Murray of an earlier timeline down her throat, and wondered what would become of him in this latest timeline. Then she gulped Daniel relentlessly into her throat, and down, until all she could feel was an easing of the slight stomach pains that were beginning to form in her stomach.

She realised that her long and intentional delay in swallowing him had caused a certain amount of hunger to build up.

“Oh my!” she said aloud, “He went down rather late. I hope I saved room for dinner.”